


Interlude: Bitwise Negotiation

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Marks [9]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: AU, F/M, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 19:49:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6920641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Atlantis, Rodney McKay, <i>I've known a few guys who thought they were pretty smart / But you've got being right down to an art / You think you're a genius-you drive me up the wall / You're a regular original, a know-it-all </i> (Shania Twain)."</p><p>Jason Sheppard has his father's smarts and Rodney's inability to keep his mouth shut. (Summary from Brumeier)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interlude: Bitwise Negotiation

Jason sat on the chair in the principal’s office, shoulders hunched, looking very small.  
  
Nancy and Grant sat on one side of him - Nancy on the far side of Grant - and Rodney and John sat on the other side of him - John on the far side of Rodney.  
  
Principal Vickers sat on the other side of her massive desk, gazing at all of them implacably.  
  
“Well?” she asked.  
  
“It’s obvious,” Rodney said. “He’s bored.”  
  
“He’s being disruptive in class,” Principal Vickers said.  
  
Rodney pushed a piece of paper across the desk. “Do you recognize this?”  
  
“He’s been defacing his textbooks.”  
  
“This is advanced physics,” Rodney said. “These are the baseline calculations for making an inter-dimensional bridge.” John nudged him. “All theoretical, of course.”  
  
Principal Vickers raised her eyebrows. “Jason is six.”  
  
“Jason is brilliant, and he’s bored,” Rodney said.  
  
“His tendency to interrupt the teacher and boss the other children around is negatively impacting everyone else’s ability to learn,” Principal Vickers said, though her steely confidence was wavering around the edges.  
  
“Well,” Nancy said to John, “he certainly didn’t inherit your ability to play dumb.”  
  
“You encourage him to be himself, which is a good thing,” John began without looking at her.  
  
“Perhaps,” Grant cut in, “we should excuse Jason while we discuss this.”  
  
Principal Vickers nodded, and Grant and Rodney led Jason out of her office between them.  
  
They sat on the bench outside her office. Jason curled against Grant’s side, swinging his legs desultorily. Grant put a hand on his knee, stilling him.  
  
“Interrupting your teacher and the other students isn’t nice,” Grant said. “Your mom and dad and Rodney and I raised you better than that.”  
  
“They’re all so stupid,” Jason muttered.  
  
“Stupid’s a rude word.”  
  
“Rodney says it all the time.”  
  
Grant shot Rodney a look.  
  
Rodney worked with stupid people. The world would not be saved by stroking their egos. He cleared his throat. “Jason,” he said, “how did you learn that math?”  
  
“I read some of the math books in Daddy’s office, and then I saw the puzzle on your whiteboard. I wanted to try it.”  
  
Grant sighed. “That’s why the sudden interest in my dictionary. You were looking up words from the math textbooks.” He looked at Rodney. “Did you know John was capable of this?”  
  
“John’s always been surprisingly quick off the mark with math,” Rodney said, “and further in our relationship I learned that he qualifies for MENSA and also that he received his master’s degree in combinatorial design theory. But he’s always been good at -”  
  
“Blending in?”  
  
“Playing dumb.”  
  
Grant sighed again. “Jason, just because you’re smarter than the other kids -”  
  
“And the teacher.”  
  
“- And maybe the teacher doesn’t mean you have the right to be rude.”  
  
Jason cast Rodney a questioning look. Rodney slid off the bench and knelt so he was looking Jason in the eye.  
  
“I know I’m not always the most polite person in the world,” Rodney said, which was an understatement, but Grant managed not to laugh, and Rodney appreciated that. “I was like you in school. I was smarter than everyone else, even my teachers. They gave me work to keep me busy, but I still got bored sometimes. And - it was hard. I had no friends, because I was always showing them how smart I was.”  
  
Jason wrinkled his nose. “You want me to pretend to be stupid so I can have friends?”  
  
“No,” Rodney said, even though he suspected John might have said yes. John had done precisely that. John still did that, to an extent. “But you know how you get bored when me and Daddy and Mom and Grant talk about grown-up stuff?”  
  
Jason nodded.  
  
“And you know how it’s rude when people are around and you don’t talk about things they can talk about too, like people they don’t know?”  
  
Jason nodded.  
  
“When you’re really, really smart, and all you talk about are things only you understand, it’s kind of like you’re talking about boring grown-up stuff.” Rodney swallowed hard. “So when you’re around the other kids doing group activities, be polite. Talk about things they can talk about. There’s a time and a place to talk about what you can do.”

“There isn’t.”  
  
“Trust Mommy and Daddy. There will be. We’ll make sure you learn what you need to learn.”  
  
Jason pouted. “Coloring is boring.”  
  
“Actually, coloring and drawing are useful skills,” Rodney sad. “Sometimes I need to draw models of what I’m trying to represent mathematically, and people understand me better if I draw better.”  
  
“Really?” Jason eyed Rodney skeptically.  
  
“Really,” Rodney said firmly.  
  
Jason huffed a little sigh and reached out to Rodney for a hug. “Okay. I’ll be nicer now.”  
  
“I know sometimes it’s hard to stay quiet when someone gets the wrong answer, but if you tell them the right answer, they never figure out how to find it themselves.” Rodney pulled Jason into his arms and squeezed him tightly for a moment, then sat him back on the bench. “Now, want to play a game?”  
  
“What kind of game?”  
  
“It’s called bitwise negation.” Rodney opened his smartphone so Jason could type. “Now, if you start with zero and then append its Boolean complement like this, you get this.” Rodney tapped out the first few iterations of the sequence to demonstrate.  
  
Jason accepted the phone from him. “What’s the point?”  
  
“When it’s done, I’ll show you how to turn it into a fractal snowflake,” Rodney said.  
  
“Fractals are pretty,” Jason murmured, and began typing away.  
  
“So,” Grant said, “that thing you said, about not talking about things other people in the conversation can’t understand.”  
  
“Sorry,” Rodney said.  
  
Grant studied Jason’s bent head, then glanced at Rodney. “You know, once upon a time I thought I was pretty smart.”  
  
“You and Nancy are both very intelligent.”  
  
“But we’d never keep up with Jason, would we?”  
  
“I didn’t realize John had this in him,” Rodney said quietly. “He never said. I mean, he does math puzzles voraciously, takes MENSA quizzes for fun. But -”  
  
“He’s John Sheppard.”

"Yes."

“Well, Jason is different.” Grant ruffled Jason’s hair, and Jason leaned into the touch unconsciously.  
  
“He’ll be better than all of us combined.”  
  
“I hope so.”


End file.
